The present invention relates to improvements in container closures and more particularly, but not exclusively, to closures for bottles or like containers. For simplicity, the present invention will be hereinafter described in respect of a bottle closure, but it is to be understood that a closure for any other type of container is envisaged to be within the applications to which the present invention could be put.
In drinking bottle closures, various proposals have been put forward for the controlled access to the bottle contents. In many situations, there is a need to have speedy and efficient access to the bottle contents by means of a straw or the like.
In some past proposals, a drinking straw can have a first substantially vertical position, when drink can be supplied from the bottle and a second, folded over, position resulting from the sliding of the bottle closure, when flow of drink from the bottle is terminated. In one such proposal, the bending over of the straw also results in the straw closing off an air vent connecting with the bottle interior.
Other past proposals have included the well known pop-up type closure where the raising or lowering of a pop-up valve on the top of the closure controls access to the bottle contents.
All the previous proposals for bottle closures have been found to have certain disadvantages relating to their efficiency, complexity and/or cost.
It is, thus, an object of a preferred embodiment of the invention to provide a bottle closure which will overcome or at least obviate disadvantages in bottle closures available to the present time or which at least will provide the public with a useful choice.
Further objects of this invention will become apparent from the following description.